12 KERIMOVA v. AZERBAIJAN JUDGMENT Government's position that these irregularities had somehow made it “impossible to determine the will of the voters” in the entire constituency. On the contrary, the Court considers that the facts of the case clearly disclose a situation where the irregularities, however grave they might have been, did not impact the ultimate result of the election and failed to cast any doubt on the choice made by the majority of voters in the constituency. 48. Moreover, as to the CEC decision of 8 November 2005 invalidating the election results in the applicant's constituency, the Court notes that it contained no specific description of the alleged “impermissible alterations” made to the PEC protocols or other “infringements of law”, no elaboration as to the nature of these “alterations” and “infringements”, and no reasons explaining as to why the alleged breaches obscured the outcome of the vote in the relevant polling stations and made it impossible to determine the true opinion of the voters. In such circumstances the Court cannot but note that the CEC decision was totally unsubstantiated. 49. As to the parties' submissions concerning the recount of votes, the Court agrees with the applicant that such a recount was in any event redundant because it was possible to establish who was the winning candidate even despite the irregularities. Nevertheless, the Court finds alarming the CEC's failure to even consider the possibility of a recount before invalidating the election results. The Court considers that, in cases where illegal tampering with vote counting or election documents may affect the determination of the outcome of the elections, a fair procedure for recounting votes where such a recount is possible is an important safeguard of the fairness and success of the entire election process. Even accepting the Government's argument that under Azerbaijani law an election recount was optional (at the CEC's discretion) and not mandatory, the Court considers that in the present case the CEC could have considered the possibility of a recount and at least explained the reasons for passing up this opportunity before deciding on an outright invalidation of the election results. In the Court's view, the CEC's failure to do so contributed to the appearance of arbitrariness of its decision. 50. As to the Government's argument that the recount was not possible owing to the conflicting requirements of former Article 106.3.6 of the Electoral Code, the Court finds this argument misplaced. Firstly, as noted above, it was up to the CEC to explain the reasons for not ordering a recount and it failed to offer such reasons. Secondly, it appears that former Article 106.3.6 of the Electoral Code (see paragraph 29 above) concerned the determination of the validity of the ballots at the moment when they were taken out of the ballot boxes for the original count. Once a ballot was pulled out of its envelope, determined to be valid and counted during the original count, nothing could prevent the use of this ballot at any subsequent election recount. Thirdly, the Court generally finds that it is unacceptable to rely solely on such irrelevant and petty formalities in order to justify a